Buried in a Mountain West release last week about new football divisions and a football championship game for next season was this nugget:

Scheduling for men’s and women’s basketball will include an 18-game conference schedule.

The coaches did not meet to discuss the issue now that the Mountain West, with San Diego State and Boise State back in the fold, will have 11 basketball members next season. Instead, the athletic directors merely voted at a two-day meeting in Denver last week and decided on an 18-game schedule — two more than this year, four more than the year before — in which you play eight schools twice and the remaining two once, either home or away.

The vote, according to a league source: 10-1.

The lone nay: SDSU.

“I don’t mean to stir the pot,” Steve Fisher, the dean of Mountain West coaches, said Monday when asked about it on the league’s weekly media teleconference. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Fisher successfully lobbied for a 16-game league schedule in the Big West, which SDSU was supposed to join next season if the football team went to the Big East. His argument: Fewer conference games allow for more nonconference games, and that allows more flexibility in scheduling the difficult games that raise your conference’s RPI (so vital for determining at-large berths and seeding in the NCAA Tournament).

With 18 games in what has become one of the nation’s best basketball conferences, the fear is that schools will back off on their 12 or 13 remaining games and instead just collect easy wins — not wanting to risk taking two, three, four losses into a grueling Mountain West season. And that, in turn, could lower the overall RPI of a conference that has been fifth nationally the last two seasons and is currently No. 2.

“I’ve watched the growth, the success, the recognition, the national exposure,” said Fisher, the only head coach in the Mountain West for all 14 years of its existence. “And it has all been created by our initial ability to schedule and then beat programs from BCS conferences with big names, and do so selectively. We’ve done it through scheduling.

“I know I’m probably coming on too strong for some people, but I think we made our mark by beating the UCLAs and the North Carolinas and the Connecticuts of the world. And you can’t play them back-to-back-to-back. When we have two less nonconference games, that makes it harder for everybody.”

Most Big West coaches and ADs initially resisted Fisher’s pitch for a shorter league schedule, not wanting the headache of finding additional nonconference opponents. But he was able to make his argument, at least, and eventually they consented to play 16.

Fisher never had the chance with the Mountain West. He said the first he learned of the 18-game schedule was when he read it in the newspaper.

“There was no consultation from the coaches,” Fisher said. “This (decision) was made by others.”

The only way to play a full round-robin with 11 teams is a 20-game schedule, which Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson broached and the athletic directors shot down. That left 18 or 16.

“The problem with 16 is you get a really unbalanced conference schedule,” New Mexico coach Steve Alford said. “There are going to be four teams you only play once — two at home and two on the road. That’s kind of a flip of a coin. That can be very disturbing and very unfair when seeding for the tournament means something. Eighteen makes for a little bit more balanced and fair league race.”

Another argument for 18 is cost savings, and convenience.

“I see what Steve is saying,” Colorado State’s Larry Eustachy said. “But for me, in my experience, it’s very difficult to schedule. It’s hard to get teams to come play you. It’s very expensive. We’re paying teams up to $100,000 to come play us. For us, I think the league is tough enough and our RPI will take care of itself.”

Fisher’s plan had the Aztecs gone to the Big West, currently the nation’s 19th-rated conference in RPI, was to load up in November and December with high-profile opponents such as Kansas, Temple, Memphis, Cincinnati and Arizona. Last week he admitted that he might dial that back now.

“Steve thought he was going to go to the Big West, so I heard he scheduled the Lakers and the Mavericks,” Eustachy joked. “He had an unbelievable schedule that he already scheduled, so he’s in a bind now, I imagine.”